Now with Make-Me-Glow LP Project, we have built an application for controlling PiGlow from Ubuntu Phone. The PiGlow is a small add on board for the Raspberry Pi that provides 18 individually controllable LEDs. Recently Victor Tuson Palau has released glowapi for Snappy Ubuntu Core, which will allow us to control PiGlow over HTTP Protocol.

Goal behind this demonstration is to defined immense possibility of Snappy Ubuntu Core to control devices remotely, within Ubuntu Ecosystem. If you are planning to dive in to IOT based solutions, Snappy Ubuntu Core is great start for you. After this demonstration, I am planning to control my Home Lights connected to device running Snappy Ubuntu Core and controlling the same through Ubuntu Phone. Stay tuned…

Basically, at the end of this blog i will demonstrate how to assemble your own Ubuntu Orange Matchbox: Ubuntu Branded Pibow for Raspberry Pi 2 & PiGlow. Flash it with latest Snappy Ubuntu Core, which has support for Raspberry Pi 2’s GPIO & I2C. I will also managing Snap packages from Ubuntu Phone Browser & Snappy Scope (Beta). I will also share tips & tricks to enable WiFi on Snappy Ubuntu Core. At the end, i will demonstrate Snappy Ubuntu Core + Raspberry Pi 2 + PiGLow in action. PiGlow will blink LEDs, as per the CPU Resource Utilization by Snappy Ubuntu Core.

Now, it’s time to give Ubuntu Branding. Just stick transparent Ubuntu Logo sticker on transparent Pibow closing cover. You can also install PiGlow before closing the cover. If you know any laser engraving service provider for metal / plastic, consult them and get your Ubuntu Branding engraving on transparent Pibow closing cover. But my trick will give you Ubuntu Orange Logo

Recently, Snappy Ubuntu Core get latest updated for Raspberry Pi 2, which has latest updates & upgrades. Please follow this page Getting Started with Snappy Ubuntu Core for Raspberry Pi 2. It is having latest info and procedure to play with Snappy Ubuntu Core @ Raspberry Pi 2. You can even build your own image.

Here is sort summary to do the same. Get 4 Gb Class 10 micro SDHC Card. Format it and flash it with latest Snappy Ubuntu Core image.

Tips & Tricks to enable WiFi @ Snappy Ubuntu Core:

Snappy Ubuntu Core has inbuilt support for Ethernet port, So, connecting your Raspberry Pi 2 to LAN will get LAN IP from Router. Since, this is headless device, you can always do SSH from your host machine if you do not want to connect it with separate monitor.

It does not have support for WiFi. Here are the steps to enable WiFi and add support for USB wi-fi adapter, having Ralink RA5370 chipset. I got this with my Raspberry Pi 2 kit, please check chipset for your USB wi-fi Adapter, you may need different firmware.

I would also prefer to install nano for better modification of WiFi SSID configuration in future. Get it from here.

http://ports.ubuntu.com/pool/main/n/nano/nano-udeb_2.2.6-3_armhf.udeb

CPU Resource Utilization Demonstration @ Snappy Ubuntu Core:

Now, it’s time to demonstrate CPU Resource Utilization through PiGlow. It is small add on for Raspbeery Pi that provides 18 Individually controllable LEDs. We will feed CPU Resource Utilization such a way that it will glow more when we have more CPU Resource Utilization. As i said erlier, recently we got GPIO & I2C support on Snappy Ubuntu Core, it is possible to do the same. And we have snap package available from the same, called PiGlow Top.

Access your Snappy Ubuntu Core from WebDM or CLI through SSH and install PiGlow Top snap available from Snappy Ubuntu Core Web Store. After installation, we need to grant access to I2C hardware, do the same over SSH.

sudo snappy hw-assign piglowtop.kyrofa /dev/i2c-1

Now it’s time for the demonstration, grab your Ubuntu Phone, access the Snappy Ubuntu Core Webdm from your Ubuntu Phone Browser, Do some activity to increase CPU Utilization, for example Install / Remove any snap from Snappy Ubuntu Core Web Store. I have prepared small video Demonstration for your reference.

Finally, First Ubuntu Phone has been launched by Canonical / BQ in Europe. Ubuntu fans are excited to get the one, but before i share how to get / make your own in India, here are couple of news posts in Indian Media about First Ubuntu Phone launch.

Also, I am getting random e-mails, pokes, tweets, messages on how to get First Ubuntu Phone in India. Ubuntu Fans & Community is very excited about Ubuntu Phone. In fact there was question on http://askubuntu.com , asking..

Have you ever think of baking your own cloud within 5 Minutes? Have you ever think of Elastic Compute (Nova-Compute) within 5 Minutes? Have you ever think of Elastic Storage (Nova-Volumes) within 5 minutes? Have you ever think of your hands on Open Stack Dash Board (Horizon) within 5 Minutes? Now you should think of it. With release of Ubuntu 12.04, It’s time for Ubuntu Cloud Live 12.04. Ubuntu / Canonical has released Ubuntu Cloud Live 12.04, Hybrid Image, Burn on your DVD , CD or USB Stick, you can say Cloud On DVD, Cloud on Stick, Yes, it’s as easy as you reading this.

Ubuntu Cloud Live is a live CD/USB image that allows you to get a glimpse of Ubuntu Cloud Infrastructure. Project’s web site is located at Launchpad – https://launchpad.net/cloud-live. Procedure is very simple; download an image, burn it on CD or dd it on the USB key and boot of that device. System will boot in Unity or Unity2D and present you with at Getting Started document. Notice that we do not include full Ubuntu desktop experience – we’ve removed all components that aren’t necessary for this project, to make image as small as possible.

Once you finish with Getting Started document, you’ll be able to log into the dashboard and start instances. All of this without installing anything on your computer! For the purpose of demo, we’ve provided a small CirrOS image which you can run and log in to. Since everything is running in RAM, you will have better experience if your system has 4 or more gigabytes of memory. 2GB is enough to get system booted, but you won’t be able to do much more after that.

For a little extra, we’ve configured Ubuntu Cloud Live with support for Nova Volume. All you have to do is plug in additional disk, create a PV volume on it (pvcreate /dev/xyz), create nova-volumes VG (vgcreate nova-volumes /dev/xyz) and restart nova volume (service nova-volume restart).

Image is built with live-build and the source is available on Launchpad. Build process pulls in one package that’s also available on Launchpad. Procedure for building your own Cloud Live is very simple:

Install Ubuntu 12.04, 64bit

Install live-build package

Create working directory – mkdir ~/cloud-live ; cd ~/cloud-live

Branch bzr code – bzr branch lp:cloud-live config

[OPTIONAL] Customize config/* files

Build an image – sudo lb build

Burn or dd resulting image – binary-hybrid.iso

Or, if you just want default, official, Ubuntu Cloud Live image, go to cdimage.ubuntu.com and grab it!

Update / Observation:

I have found that, since Red Hat came up with Red Hat OpenStack Administration (CL210), lot of students in India/ My City are struggling to see working OpenStack Demonstration, and even for the they enrolling to this course. Even trying hard with Fedora and spending whole day. So, i am posting this article for students to create Open Stack Based Cloud within 5 Minutes, for the demonstration and understanding of Openstack & Cloud Computing.

“It was great event!” ->Common words from all attendees at the end of the event. Freshly, This was first OpenStack India Community Meetup @ Ahmedabad. Thanks to all for making it successful. Here are bits & bytes of the event.

Kavit from Aptira did keynote & general presentation on OpenStack & OpenStack India community. It was great start for all to understand about OpenStack and OpenStack India Community

My Self did presentation on Canonical, Company behind Ubuntu, OpenStack Release cycle and Canonical / Ubuntu parcipation inOpenStack Development. I also did detail presentation of JUJU & MAAS, Fastest Automation Tools for OpenStack Deployment on Ubuntu. There was deep demand from the attendees for it. People were expecting live Juju demonstration, which was not possible due to bandwidth issue. Also, they demanded JUJU Charm school workshop for next OpenStack India Community Meetup @ Ahmedabad. It was fresh crowed, does not interested in Ceph / Puppet, i did not get single question of it.

Mr. Kalpan Shah, Computer Science College Passed Out, did great presentation on OpenStack Billing Project, he did the same as part of his last year semester project. He developed it on PHP, all development, Deployment & testing was done on Ubuntu only. That was great boost for all Colleage Attendees.

Then closing note was given by Mr. Hardik Joshi, Assistant Professor at Computer Science Department, Gujarat University. He was very happy to see people interested in OpenStack. Expecting more and more such event in future.

After the event, Mr. Joshi organized small meeting with Head Of Computer Science Department, Gujarat University, Dr. Savita R. Gandhi. She was very happy by our initiative.